Episode 1 of Boots begins in 1990, with Cameron being interviewed on why he wants to be a marine. He says for freedom, and that his life needs a change. Cameron rewinds his life to talk about how he was always told to be masculine by his family. After being swirlied by his peers, and being told he needs to be himself and have self-respect by a peer, Cameron gets a call from his best friend Ray.
Ray tells Cameron he talked with his dad about joining the Marines. After Cameron reads about the buddy system, Ray tells him he wouldn’t be able to, because it’s illegal to be gay in the military. Returning to 1990, Cameron does get accepted, and we see him on the bus to the Marine camp. After being aggressively told to get off the bus, we meet Staff Sergent Mckinnon, who explains the drill.
After everyone gets their scripted phone calls with their families, their heads shaved, and a bunch of other Marine CORP activities, everyone gets their saddlebags and beds. We then see Cameron telling his mother about joining the marines in a flashback, and Cameron sneaks out of his bed to the bathrooms, and after one of the other soldiers calls him a faggot for looking, Cameron tells Ray that he made a mistake, and that this place is like everywhere else, but worse.
Ray tries to comfort him, telling him it’s just day one, that it’s always hard on day one, and he has to keep going. The Drill Sargent’s wake everyone up to take the initial strength test, and while running the track, Cameron is told by another recruit that he’ll be dropped if he doesn’t pass the test. The hardest test is saved for the end, where you have to do at least three pull-ups. Cameron and the other recruit manage to pass the test by doing the minimum three pull-ups. Cameron’s mother confronts the man who recruited her son, saying they took her son from her, to which the recruiter replies that Cameron wanted change.
Back at the military base where everyone gets their rifles. Ray smiles at Cameron, and winds up getting socked in the face by a Drill Instructor. While the recruits are attaching their rifles to their beds, the process gets interrupted by the Company Commander, who tells the Drill Instructors that there is a problem. That night as Cameron lays awake in worry, Ray reappears, and tells him that he’s fine, and that Instructor Knox is not coming back. Cameron then has a talk with his conscience, and the next morning, we meet the new Drill Instructor Seargent Sullivan. After eyeballing Cameron, he tells everyone to grab their rifles and stand in line at the position of attention. He then tells everyone their playing “96.” If he says 90, they hold their rifles at a 90-degree angle, until he says 6, to lower rifles at 6 degrees. He gives a speech about how his job is to make them into men, into Marines.
A decent start, the pacing is there, there is a little humor, and it wasn’t boring. This also shows the time when gay people weren’t as accepted, and what it was like to try to hide being gay in the military, in the time where you could be prosecuted for it, and also does a good job at showing the training, and aspects of the military. This was also Normal Lear’s final project, and knowing the amazing things Norman Lear worked on, it was guaranteed to have some merit. Overall, this show has promise and seems like it would be a good watch.
Rating 7/10